A man called from the airport in
he was flying to
for his flight. He wanted to know if it was safe to sleep
near the airport in his rental car. He and his girlfriend
didn’t have any money for a motel. Scrib said it wasn’t,
and invited them to come and stay with him and Brenda
in
a supper fixed. The man said, “We are vegetarians.” Scrib said
he’d make scalloped potatoes and leave out the ham. Did they eat
milk and cheese? They did. Also potatoes. It turns out he was
a college professor on sabbatical, traveling with a cameraperson,
making a home-movie about mail-art artists, and many of the people
they interviewed told them to look up Scrib when they got to
so he did. He interviewed Scrib in his eyrie. The questions were
condescending, Scrib felt. He felt like the man, a European, looked down
on Americans. At least, Scrib felt like he patronized him. Of course,
Scrib was paranoid. The woman, Angela, took her coffee in the mornings
on the porch in a bra and panties, where she could be seen from the road,
and nearly stopped traffic. Scrib was probably a prude, too.
At least, he wasn’t used to nudists underfoot.
They all went to the Steak & Ale the next night
for the salad bar, then Peter and Angela were on
their way. Back to where he was a member of
the professoriate and all that that entailed.
Scrib was an unemployed technical writer who worked as a navvy
when he had to. From navigator. Not the
The man leaning on the shovel. The construction worker. The demolition laborer.
War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Demolition is historic
preservation. The East German writers who informed on each other to the secret police.
The members of the Soviet Writers Union who voted to expel Solzhenitzen.
Scrib calls George W. Bush, former President of the
He calls Expotus’s gang of war criminals and thugs the Bush-Enron Administration.
He can’t get a word he writes in edgewise. Gen. Smedley Butler called himself
“a gangster for capitalism.” They don’t need the Marines, they do it with a pencil.
They have Blackwater. They have the CIA. I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you.